People ask me what I do, and I still sometimes stumble on the answer. AV integrator sounds too technical. Designer sounds too vague. What I actually do is build moments — spaces and objects that stop people in their tracks and make them feel something real.
I've been called an Orlando light artist in the press, and that label fits better than most. Light is the medium I keep returning to. It's immediate. It's emotional. It changes how a space breathes, how big or small it feels, how safe or alive or sacred. Done right, light doesn't just illuminate a room — it transforms it into something you carry with you.
Where the Art Side Lives
Most people come to 42 Audio Visual for AV systems — hotels, resorts, corporate spaces. And we do that work well. But underneath all of it is an artist who's been thinking about light, geometry, and human experience since before the company had a name.
The art side of what we do shows up most clearly in projects like Shrimpy — a fully custom LED pirate shrimp mascot built for Universal Orlando. Shrimpy is roughly ten feet tall, covered in programmable LEDs, and completely hand-fabricated. He became an icon at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel. But what I'm most proud of isn't the engineering — it's that kids lose their minds when they see him. Adults do too, if they let themselves. That reaction is what I'm chasing every time.
Spectral Wake: Light as a Living Object
One of the pieces I'm most proud of is Spectral Wake, a dichroic light sculpture we created for the New American Home 2026 showcase at the International Builders Show. Dichroic material is extraordinary stuff — it splits white light into its full spectrum, casting rainbow prisms that shift as you move around the piece. The colors aren't painted or projected. They're physics. They live inside the glass itself.
Spectral Wake was designed to feel like light in motion, like catching a wave at the exact moment it breaks and scatters. We built it to hang in a dramatic entryway, where the natural light changes throughout the day and the piece responds to it. By sunset, the whole room is alive with color.
That kind of experiential art isn't a decoration. It's an anchor. It gives a space a soul.
"Light doesn't just illuminate space — it defines it. The right installation makes a room feel intentional, alive, like it was made for exactly this moment."
Art Cube: An Immersive Gallery Without Walls
The Art Cube project pushed the concept even further. We took a standard shipping container and transformed it into a fully immersive, programmable light environment. Inside, every surface becomes a canvas. Sound wraps around you. The boundaries of the space dissolve.
Art Cube was designed to travel — to show up at festivals, corporate events, hotel courtyards, and city plazas and invite people in. The experience changes based on the programming, which means the same container can be meditative one weekend and electric the next. It's an experiential art installation that meets people where they are.
What makes it work isn't the technology. It's the intentionality. Every light cue, every sonic texture, every transition was designed to create a feeling. That's the artist's job.
Why Art-First Thinking Produces Better Spaces
Here's what I've learned after years of doing both: the best AV systems and the best art installations share the same foundation. They start with the human experience, not the equipment list.
When we design a hotel lobby audio system, we're thinking about how the sound makes guests feel when they walk in. When we spec a resort LED wall, we're thinking about what story it tells and who's watching. When we wire up a ballroom, we're thinking about the moment when the lights come down and the event begins.
That artist's eye doesn't slow us down as integrators — it makes us better at it. We catch things that purely technical teams miss, because we're asking different questions. Not just "does it work?" but "does it feel right?"
What Public Art Installation Means in Orlando
Orlando is an interesting city for a light artist. It's home to some of the most elaborate themed environments on earth — places where the line between art and engineering has been blurred for decades. That context shapes how I think about public art installation and experiential design here.
The bar is high. People in Orlando have walked through Diagon Alley. They've stood inside a galaxy. So when I'm creating something for a public space, a hotel atrium, a corporate campus, or a festival ground, I'm not competing with simplicity. I'm reaching for something that earns its place in a city that knows spectacle.
The projects I care most about are the ones that do something different — that use light and space not to dazzle, but to move. That's a different goal. And it requires a different kind of maker.
The Work Ahead
I'm still building toward the larger installations I can see clearly in my mind — monumental public art works that use light as the primary medium, that make people feel small in the most beautiful way. That vision drives everything else we do at 42 Audio Visual.
Every hotel project, every LED wall, every immersive room — they're all practice for something bigger. And they're all built with the same conviction: that a well-designed space can change how someone feels, even if they can't explain why.
That's what light does. That's what I'm after.
If you're working on a space that deserves more than generic fixtures and forgotten specs — let's talk. We bring the artist and the engineer to the same table, every time.
